[Abstracted from Body and Soul:Rethinking Sexuality and Justice-Love,
Marvin M Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, Pilgrim Press, 2003, pp. 1-22]
Keeping Body and Soul Together, Again for the First Time
Marvin M. Ellison and Sylvia Thorson-Smith
Hope and fear
Although conflict about religion and sexuality is nothing new, in recent years the heat seems to have been turned up. A tremendous amount of ferment and debate has been stirred up, both by those seeking to change attitudes and policies about sex and by those working just as diligently to block change. So much hope and so much fear are being expressed about religion and things sexual.
Justice-making and spiritual renewal
In working for social justice and the renewal of religious tradition, we have been far from alone. Countless numbers of women and men, older and younger, of various racial and sexual identities have raised persistent cries for justice and compassion in their churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples and throughout the social order. This diverse assortment of folks constitutes a grassroots progressive movement seeking a new moral order or bios, way of life. Some of us recognize and speak of this also as the movement of the Sacred in our midst.
Within this engagement, we've been learning, again and again, that a passion for justice lies at the heart of any spirituality worth having. Moreover, justice-making begins not by looking on from a distance, but by making connections with others, especially those deemed Other, outcast, and enemy, and by listening deeply, heeding their (and our own) cries of protest and lament, and joining the effort to set wrongs right. These days the spiritual crisis that is so pervasive has everything to do with the fact that so few self-identified religious people express a genuine commitment to do justice and hold themselves accountable to marginalized peoples. Ethicist Beverly Harrison puts the matter this way: “Why is it that so many people like us--white and relatively affluent--do not hear the calls for solidarity (not just advocacy or concern, but solidarity) with the poor, as a call to community? . . . Is it not the case that the politics of liberation makes little sense to us, and frightens us so badly, precisely because the longing--our will and desire--for genuine community is so nearly dead among US?” 9
It is from this vantage point, as advocates for justice and renewal of community, including communities of faith, that we have invited the contributors to this volume to share their considerable wisdom about religion, sexuality, and sexual ethics. They, along with us, are persuaded that it is necessary to break through what poet Adrienne Rich calls the “lies, secrets, and silence" and discern anew how to offer a genuinely life-giving word, both spoken and embodied. Given the negative track record of most religious traditions about sex and sexuality, who can seriously doubt that individuals and communities alike are in great need of Spirit-filled good news about sexuality, spirituality, and social justice?
Our working assumption is that religion may well contribute to the doing of justice, but only if it undergoes its own reformation. Such a reformation will happen most readily, we wager, by means of embracing the Other and receiving with gratitude the moral wisdom of feminist, womanist, mujerista, and queer theologians, as well as people everywhere who are struggling for bodily integrity, spiritual well-being, and life itself. At the same time, we recognize that personal and communal struggles around gender, sexuality, and sexual difference are often intense, deeply divisive, and not likely to be resolved any time soon. Indeed, this collective effort to keep body and soul together may, indeed, be the longest revolution, one in which many others will need to follow and stand upon our shoulders, just as we now stand on the shoulders of so many people, known and unknown, who have gone ahead of us. This "great peace march" is not for the faint-hearted, for as Carter Heyward rightly contends, "Sexual justice [has been] the most trivialized, feared, and postponed dimension of social justice in western society and, possibly, in the world."
Keeping Body and Soul Together
People in many religious traditions have sought to discern the "good news about sex" and a liberating sexual ethic for these times. Some of their study papers have contended that now is the time to rethink sexuality and reclaim a passionate spirituality of justice. This involves affirming a gracious God, delighting in our sexuality, a call to holiness as inclusive wholeness, and the need to decenter conversations by actively listening to marginalized voices (since Western culture has been shaped primarily by white male heterosexuals). Sexual justice-love of mutuality and respect means honoring the goodness of sexuality, having gratitude for diversity, granting special concern for the sexually abused and violated, and acknowledging accountability for sexual behavior. They often advocate a single moral standard of justice-love as a test for all sexual relationships and propose ethics of "common decency" as a test of our values and commitments. But such critiques of patriarchal sexuality and calls for a complete dismantling of sexist and heterosexist practices in sexual relationship and church practice are unsettling at the very least to the comfortably privileged keepers of the status quo. Nothing less than the bedrock of normative sex, marriage, and ecclesiastical gender arrangements are at risk when a church document proclaims oldly that human sexual pleasure is godly, that same-sex couples deserve religious approval, and that the substance (justice-love) rather than the form (marriage) should govern ethical relationships.
Risks then and now
As one woman stated:
What the youth and young adults of today are crying out for is guidance for responsible sexual behavior. God created us as sexual beings and we should be able to rejoice and explore God's love with our chosen partner through our sexuality, but unfortunately the opposite often occurs and sex is viewed as sinful, dirty, and wrong. There are many who don't understand their sexuality, and they are the ones our church must help, and they are silently crying out for help.
For people trapped in pain, silence, or worse, a church that does not speak a truthful and healing word only adds to their suffering. This is not only inhumane; it is unfaithful. We cannot keep silent and remain faithful to the God who creates, redeems, and sustains human sexuality as a good gift. God intends well-being for all creation, including sexual well-being. Since God is far from indifferent about human welfare, the community seeking fidelity to God should reflect God's own abiding care and compassion.
Speaking a healing and truthful word may well be the faithful thing to do, but it is also risky, especially in an ecclesiastical and socio-cultural context in which organized, well-financed forces of fear and reaction strike to punish dissenters and keep them silent.
Advocacy for sexual justice is risky business, but it is well worth the risk and the struggle because all are diminished when anyone is excluded or not heard in full voice. We are all called to work for the day when the price of doing sexual justice will not be paid disproportionately by people of color, women, sexual minorities, and those employed by the church and church-related institutions. White racial supremacy does and will impact sexuality at every turn, and unless white-skinned people become responsible, even the well-intentioned among them may try to protect themselves by stepping aside and letting people of color "take the heat," especially women and those who are not heterosexual. Keeping the costs of risk-taking in mind, we would do well to remember John Dominic Crossan's wise observation:
It is impossible (fortunately) to have justice without compassion, but it is possible (unfortunately) to have compassion without justice. . . . Compassion, no matter how immediately necessary or profoundly human, cannot substitute for justice, for the right of all to equal dignity and integrity of life. Those who live by compassion are often canonized. Those who live by justice are often crucified. [The Birth of Christianity (San Fransisco: Harper-Collins, 1998) p.586.]